Biotech Roundup: Monday, March 23

We’ve a number of interesting posts to pique your interests this afternoon.

First up, genetics and gene therapy: a new frontier. Friend of IAmBiotech, Mariano DiFabio, brought this post about gene therapy to our attention. He poses the question: is it taking our knowledge of genes too far to select for positive traits in our children?

Founder of WSJ’s Health Blog bids farewell. Today, Scott Hensley, the founding editor of the Wall Street Journal Health Blog, wrote his final post. His insight will be missed, but we’ll certainly be following him on Twitter.

Clinical trials mentioning stem cells up over 200% since summer 2007. The Niche, brings us this post about the increase in US clinical trials using stem cells:

The number of U.S. registered clinical trials using stem cells increased from 709 at in summer 2007 to 2,319 today. For trials using stem cells in heart disease grew by 110% last year (from 118 to 56); Parkinson’s disease fell by 100% last year (from 1 to 0). That’s according to an index of clinical trials just posted by Stanford’s Chris Scott.

Congresswoman and Cancer survivor introduces Cancer education bill. We learned over the weekend that Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz is a breast cancer survivor. She is building on her personal experience to introduce a bill that would help educate young women about breast cancer. Way to go Rep Wasserman Schultz!